


The Heart Goes Yonder

by Jay_Wells



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8138300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay_Wells/pseuds/Jay_Wells
Summary: Eliza had been patient. She had been understanding. She had earned the right to be called Mrs. Hamilton, and the least he could do was treat her like his wife. Like he was hers.She was a Christian, she believed in forgiveness. But why did she have to be the one to suffer, every time?





	

Eliza held the pile of letters in shaking hands. She had written them years ago, back when her marriage had been simple and giddy. Alex’s letters sat on the bedstand next her. Shortly after they found out she was pregnant with Philip, he had been deployed to Saudi Arabia.  
 _Unalterably yours, Alexander._  
Unalterable, unless one happened to be a pretty damsel in distress.  
She believed in forgiveness. She believed in redemption, but how far did that have to go?

It had started with a woman, tired, alone and broke on their doorstep. It started the sound of the doorbell and a “Darling, I’ve got this.” It started with a hushed conversation that no one told her about. It started with an “It’s nothing, don’t worry, Bets.”  
Then he went to her apartment to give her a check. Eliza asked him about it the next day before leaving for her father’s.  
He’d blushed and fidgeted and said, “It was a gift to a friend. I’m sorry.”  
She had trusted him.  
Maybe if she hadn’t, she’d had noticed the thirty here and forty there that disappeared from their bank account. Once she’d caught him walking home from one of his outings looking satisfied, and she’d thought nothing of it, but now the image haunted her. That’s what he looks like when he’s lain with another woman, her mind screamed, and then the rage and the tears and the horror and guilt and embarrassment flooded her senses. She should be the only one to make him feel like that. It was her right. He had married _her_. Not Maria. Not Angelica. Not even John.  
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The papers had buzzed with rumors about his wandering eye for years, but she’d never bought into the gossip. Alex had been her husband. Worse still, her friends had treated her with pity and shook their heads, like she didn’t notice the flirtations between her sister and husband. But she had, and they had never mattered until now.  
Now memories of family dinners, nights out, parties and holidays surfaced and she analyzed them for every flirt, every wink, ever little touch. She had been confident that despite their strange attraction, they would never betray her. Alex did, though, and Angelica … When she told her sisters -- Angelica and Peggy at least, Kat was too young to understand -- they reacted strangely. Eliza wasn’t quite sure how they should react, but Peggy’s awkward silence and Angelica’s half-hearted defense was not what she wanted. Angelica had taken Eliza’s side, but not against Alex. Against Maria.  
She couldn’t fathom how to feel about Maria. Eliza had yet to meet the woman, but she knew she was married with a little girl about James’ age. Maria was the boogieman of her imagination, and yet she didn’t know how much she was accountable. Part of her wanted to scream and kick and cry that it was all Maria because that was so much easier than facing Alex’s infidelity.  
Eliza wasn’t stupid, though. Alex was not a toy on the playground that Maria had snatched from her. He had given himself away willing, and that hurt worse than theft.  
Before no mortal ever knew,  
 _A love like mine, so tender, true._  
He said those words to her, once, on bended knee. She thought he’d been hers then.

Tears rolled down her chin and stained the paper. The ink started to run.  
Ten years ago, she couldn’t wait for him to come back from active duty. Yesterday she couldn’t wait to see him after work. Tonight she didn’t even want him to come up the stairs.  
Eliza didn’t want to look him in the eye while he apologized with a guilty expression. That made it real. It couldn’t be real. If it was, could she trust that he wasn’t sleeping with Kitty when he stayed overnight, or that his flirting with Angelica was just that? He was awfully close with Troup. Was that fair, to judge which of his friendship was less innocent than it seemed? But if he was to be trusted, he should have shown it.  
Rage came out on top of her messy emotions, and she grabbed a lighter she kept for candles and glided down the stairs and down the hall to the bathroom. She passed by his office and the light was still on. She couldn't bring herself to care.  

Sitting cross-legged in the tub, she sat the stack of letters down, leaving his on top the towel rack. With a flick, she lit the lighter and set fire to the letters she sent to him. They burned quickly. Numb, she reached for Alex’s, but a voice at the door stopped her.  
“Mama, why are you sitting in the bathtub?” Angie whispered from the doorway in her penguin-print pajama pants and one of Alex’s old t-shirts. She cocked her curly head to the side and wrinkled her brow.  
Eliza’s voice sounded rough to her own ears when she asked, “Honey, why are you up out of bed?”  
“I had to pee.” She stepped into the bathroom. “Philip says that Papa hasn’t come out of his office. How come?”  
The eight-year-old took a step forward and saw the light and the stack of paper’s signed with her father’s name. “You’re burning Papa’s letters. Why?”  
The confusion and uncertainty on Angie’s face broke some sort of dam in Eliza’s heart and she sobbed into her hands, dropping the lighter. Alarmed, Angie hurried forward and removed the letters, placing them back on the rack, and relocated the lighter to the window sill. She crawled into the tub and wrapped her small arms around Eliza.  
 _I want my husband back._  
Eliza believed in forgiveness and redemption, but why was it always her offering it to everyone else?


End file.
